Ours is a household of readers. At any given moment chances are very good that at least one of us is either engrossed in a book or is deep into Reddit or Facebook (yes, that counts as reading). For their bedtime story, Georgia has been reading a beautifully illustrated volume of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to the girls several nights a week… unabridged in all its magical wordiness. So it is no surprise that Olivia is the best reader in her Kindergarten class; she is following in Lily’s footsteps by carrying a book with her whenever she leaves the house.

This being Saturday morning, I had the leisure to stay in bed a bit later than usual. For thirty minutes or so I heard rustlings and creakings coming from the girls’ bedroom, so I knew at least one of them was awake. When my curiosity got the best of me, I got up and peeked in. There was Olivia propped up in her bed with The Teeny Weeny Tadpole in her lap, reading to her big sister. She hesitated over a few words, but figured them out carefully; only once did she stumble…over “course”, as in “of course”.

Olivia represents the “perfect storm” for reading development: a print-rich environment, family members who value and model reading, a lively curiosity, a wide vocabulary, and the ability to figure out words in context. Also a Kindergarten teacher who encourages every opportunity for reading and challenges each reader at her own level and a grammy who was once a special education teacher.

Next week they are celebrating Dr. Seuss every day; Olivia has already packed her copy of The Foot Book to read to her classmates. Life doesn’t get better than this!

A happy, self-indulgent space where I write things for YOU to read! These things I write about include life, travel, first world problems, myself and other people. Sometimes I try to be funny, but mostly I'm not.